Quote Originally Posted by Aravell View Post
People were so happy to dismiss any complaints as long as it wasn't affecting their main job. Like how you can clearly see people that don't even play melee jobs telling those who main the jobs that they should lose all positionals so the role is easier to pick up, for example.

Shadowbringers only massively simplified MCH and the entire healer role, so the majority of the community didn't care. "Nobody plays those jobs anyway".

Then Endwalker started on the DPS jobs. The SMN rework created a massive rift in the middle of the SMN playerbase, the SAM Kaiten removal got a lot of them angry. The DPS realise that their jobs aren't untouchable, so the grumbling started getting louder.

Then Dawntrail happened and the very well-received VPR got changes before most of the playerbase even got a chance to get better at it. Now the trust in the job design team is at an all-time low.
I guess my issue personally is less with simplification (because I think any complexity we've ever had has been wholly artificial just for complexity's sake, maybe with the exception of BLM) and more with the fact that, complex or simple, job identity is basically gone, there's no player input or customization at all, and each job is so confined to its specific trinity role and fights are so meticulously scripted that there's just no...surprise in combat. Even if a fight is very difficult, it's still just automatically stale by the fact that it'll be exactly or basically exactly (accommodating small different permutations of mechanics) the same every single time. You never get the thrill of reacting to something unexpected.

For example, in GW2, Elementalists have a skill called "Rebound!" that negates the next lethal blow within five seconds for you and your allies and heals them instead. You don't have to be playing a healer build to use this skill; you can be full DPS and take it to help cheese a mechanic, or just save weaker players, etc. It allows for a lot of skill expression, and it's just one skill on one class. With the exception of maybe Rescue, FFXIV just doesn't have stuff like that, and it would be really cool if it did.